Today we went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point with Lindsey and Westin. It was totally crowded (since every mom in the valley came for $2 Tuesday) but the kids still had fun and were super good the whole time.

Last Saturday, we went to the Grand Opening of North Park in Spanish Fork. Josh was fine with the idea until he heard there would be FREE hot dogs, then he knew the WHOLE town would be there. Oh well, we still went. We didn’t get in the mile long line for hot dogs, we mostly chased after our kids while they played on the playground. I’m so excited about this park, though. It’s way nice and close and the Splash Pad will be lots of fun….next summer.

There wasn’t a line for Smokey the Bear, can you believe it? 🙂

Ashton has been waiting all summer to be Spiderman on this web (he was dressed as Indiana Jones, though) …

After the park, we decided to head off on another adventure. We went to the Bingham Copper Mine.

Josh has always wanted to go there ever since he took a trip to Belgium where his cab driver went on and on telling him how amazing Utah is and how he really needed to go to Kennecott. SO WEIRD. He couldn’t believe that you could live an hour away from one of the most amazing places in the world and never go see it. So now we have and it was amazing, for sure! 🙂

It is UNBELIEVABLE that HUMANS have created this GIGANTIC hole!!!! HUMANS!!! This hole used to be a MOUNTAIN!!!!

It was EXTREEEEEMELY windy that day…

We decided to drive around Daybreak on our way out of the area. We happened upon this AWESOME zip line and played on it for a looong time.

Last Saturday, we decided to go on an adventure. Josh mowed the lawn then we packed up the kids and took off for a STAY-CATION. We drove through Spanish Fork Canyon down to Price where Nine Mile Canyon begins. We could not believe that we have both lived in Utah for most of our lives and neither of us had ever been to (or heard of – me) Nine Mile Canyon.

It was such a great adventure! I COMPLETELY recommend this outing if you have a whole day to spend. It really did take all day and we had to choose just a handful of stops to make. We printed out a list of GPS coordinates to enter into Josh’s iPhone (I also recommend doing that). We saw tons of wildlife (a deer, rabbits, squirrels, lizards), petroglyphs, a ghost town, old grave stones, had a picnic, hiked and explored. It was very kid-friendly, also. Most of the petroglyphs are close to the road and we just left the car running while we checked stuff out. It was such a fun day!

Have you noticed the CRAZY summer of birthdays we have in our family????

Emmy – July 13th

Ethan – July 20th

Josh – July 25th

Ashton – August 10th

IT’S WIIIIILD!!!!!

Anyhoo, HOW IS MY BABY BOY FIVE-YEARS-OLD?!?!?!? I cannot express the love I have for Ashton. I truly cannot begin to tell you how amazing this little guy is. I’ve started typing several sentences but they sound so lame compared to my feelings for this boy that I just delete them.

Ashton requested a “REAL” birthday party this year with FRIENDS. He made several other requests, mostly things he had experienced at other friends’ parties. (Thanks a lot all you amazing moms who are completely creative and have way more energy than I do). Ashton told his friend’s mom all about the LEGO BATMAN cake he was going to have for his birthday. Luckily, she mentioned it to me a couple days before the party so I could actually make it. Blame it on all those cake shows that make it look sooooo easy to make incredible cakes…The night before, I was up trying to figure out how to do fondant. I ended up with a big glob of gray that I was going to just throw away. At 11 PM, I told Josh to go laugh at my lame attempt at a real cake before I threw it in the trash. He was sooooo tired but he could see some potential and helped me finish it. Can you believe what a sweet husband I have???

We had a party for Ashton at Jumpin’ Jacks. We told his friends to dress up like their favorite super hero. It was THE BEST! We had tons of little super heroes literally bouncing off the walls and it wasn’t IN MY HOUSE! So perfect.

It has been 5 weeks and I FINALLY have a chance to blog about our new, sweet baby boy.

My due date was July 26th but I was scheduled to be induced on July 20th (no reason, my doctor just ROCKS and gives the option to be induced if it isn’t your first baby). I was praying that I would make it to the induction for two reasons:

1) I wanted to be all hooked up to an epidural before any of the contractions started…YES! I am a HUGE wimp and I am not ashamed to admit it! I felt contractions with Ashton and have NO INTEREST in experiencing NATURAL child birth…EVER!!!

2) I found out a couple weeks before that I was Group B Strep positive. This is no big deal for the mom but can cause serious problems with the baby if antibiotics aren’t administered for a certain amount of time before delivery (4 hours preferably). We live 30 minutes from the hospital and if my water broke (as it did with my other two) then we’d have to wait for someone to come over to stay with the kids and then get to the hospital and all that time could really add up. With Ashton and Emmy I was in labor for 4 hours from water breaking to delivery.

I was STRESSING OUT the week before, I tell you! I could NOT sleep at night. I would eventually fall asleep as I prayed and prayed that I would make it to the induction. I don’t know why I ever freak out about anything. Heavenly Father is ALWAYS so good to me and hears and answers all of my prayers. Everything went just perfectly. Here is how it went…

7:00 AM – Arrived at the hospital

8:00 AM – Started the antibiotics and petocin

10:00 AM – GOT MY EPIDURAL!!!! WOOOO-HOOOOO!!!! That’s right, before I felt even one contraction! I was only at 4cm at the time.

12:00 PM – The doctor came and broke my water. I was still only at 4cm. They told Josh that it would be a while probably and he had time to go eat some lunch.

12:45 PM – Josh decided to go eat

12:57 PM – I couldn’t hear the baby’s heartbeat on the monitor, so I started to move around and wiggle the monitor, trying to find it.

12:58 PM – I was getting REALLY nervous about the lack of heartbeat so I rang for the nurses at the exact time that 5 nurses came rushing into my room. They were also wondering where that heartbeat went. This REALLY freaked me out. They were saying “Where is Josh? He needs to be here. Call him!”, “Call the doctor! Tell him ‘911’!”

12:59 PM – I called Josh, he was already on his way up. The baby was on its way out and “911” meant the doctor should stop whatever he was doing and be there.

1:00 PM – Josh was in the room and saw the doctor RUNNING across the parking lot from his office next door.

1:06 PM – I pushed a few times and the baby was out. The doctor let Josh announce that we had A BOY! It was so much fun to have a surprise baby. We were SURE the whole pregnancy that we were having another girl. I was sooo happy and shocked that it was a boy.

Our new baby boy with his incredible dad

See? Do you see how spoiled I am??? The day could not have been more perfect and our baby boy arrived perfectly healthy. We are so blessed and I cannot even express my gratitude and love for my Heavenly Father. Later that day, my mom brought Ashton and Emmy to meet their new brother (who still didn’t have a name). They were so sweet with him from the very beginning, as you can see, and continue to be the best big brother and sister ever…

That afternoon was filled with many visitors who were ready to love this new little guy…